Saturday, May 2, 2015

A week or so ago, connecticutie posted her version
of the GOP Rape Advisory Chart to help sort out all of the confusion
about the wide variety of rape "flavors" that today's Republican Party
seems so hell-bent on bringing to light.

I thought she did a fantastic job, but, given the latest entries into
the "rainbow of rape flavors" yesterday and today by Richard Mourdock
and John Cornyn, I decided to create a revised version that plays it
straight--I'm just including the actual quotes themselves. Feel free to
repost on FB, TW or wherever you wish.

So, without further ado, I present the updated Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart:

Wow. I'm beyond flattered (if "flattered" is the appropriate term...seems a bit inappropriate in this case).
Anyway, just to reiterate, since I've had at least one person contact
me directly about it, please feel free to repost the graphic anywhere
you wish, and don't worry about "credit" or "attribution"...the
color-code chart was connecticuties, as noted above, and I certainly
don't want "credit" for the disgusting statements by the GOP jackasses
in the chart.
Also, if you want to attach a link to the chart, I'd recommend either
a) ANY of the Democrats running against the scumbags who made the
quotes (there's too many to list again) or, alternately, RAINN, which
seems appropriate.

"the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be
a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the
symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain
respectability as it worked with politicians." - from Bob Jones
University Press American history textbook

How to explain the growing polarization of American, into two different
cultural and political camps, each with almost diametrically opposing
worldviews and contradictory sets of facts?
One overlooked possible reason - schools.

Consider the following claims, from the A Beka Book and Bob Jones
University Press fundamentalist textbook lines used in Christian schools
now subsidized with state tax money in over a dozen states across
America: READ MORE

Fox News has fallen and it can't get up. Ratings for the month of May 2014, have just been published, and the numbers are devastating for Fox News.
While still occupying the top slot among the cable news networks, Fox
saw about a quarter of its audience dissolve across every demographic
group and time period.Check out my ebook...Fox Nation vs. Reality
The Fox News Community's Assault On Truth.
Originally published on News Corpse.
Be sure to LIKE News Corpse on Facebook.

A Nigerian soldier speaks to woman and childrenthat were allegedly rescued this week by the Nigerian Military after being taken by Islamic extremists in Sambisa Forest, Nigeria.

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria's military has rescued 234 more girls and
women from a Boko Haram forest stronghold in the country's northeast, an
announcement on social media said Saturday.
It brings the number of females declared rescued this week to more than 677.

Friday, May 1, 2015

The EmDrive which made made headlines last year is back in the news with the results from a new set of tests by NASA showing that the drive has been successfully tested in a hard vacuum.

The EM drive is controversial in that it appears to violate
conventional physics and the law of conservation of momentum; the
engine, invented by British scientist Roger Sawyer, converts electric
power to thrust without the need for any propellant by bouncing
microwaves within a closed container. So, with no expulsion of
propellant, there’s nothing to balance the change in the spacecraft’s
momentum during acceleration. Hence the skepticism. But as stated by
NASA Eagleworks scientist Harold White:

[T]he EM Drive’s thrust was due to the Quantum Vacuum (the
quantum state with the lowest possible energy) behaving like propellant
ions behave in a MagnetoHydroDynamics drive (a method electrifying
propellant and then directing it with magnetic fields to push a
spacecraft in the opposite direction) for spacecraft propulsion. READ MORE

[F]reedom's untidy. And free people are free to make
mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live
their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen
here," Rumsfeld said.

Furthermore:

"While no one condones looting, on the other hand, one can
understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of
repression and people who have had members of their family killed by
that regime, for them to be taking their feelings out on that regime,"
he said. "And I don't think there's anyone in any of those pictures ...
(who wouldn't) accept it as part of the price of getting from a
repressed regime to freedom."

Donald Rumsfeld, in his own words, twelve years ago (April 11, 2003).
That is all.

Republican lawmakers know very well that they're in an awful bind
completely of their own making.

They insisted on pursuing every possible
avenue for destroying Obamacare, and now one might work out for them.
The Supreme Court could very well decide in June to strike down
subsidies to the around 8 million people who have purchased insurance on
the federal exchange, making keeping that insurance impossible for
many, and making those 8 million people very, very angry. Most
Republicans have now come around to the idea that maybe that's not going
to be such a great thing for them, particularly those who have to be
re-elected next year. One of them, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has
introduced legislation that would extend the subsidies into 2017. But
Johnson isn't the only one who has some kind of fix, and most of those
"fixes" create real problems going forward.

The Johnson plan would prohibit new customers in both the
state and federally operated exchanges from receiving subsidies and
repeal the individual and employer mandates. In addition, it would
eliminate the Affordable Care Act's minimum essential benefit
requirements, allow states to set those benefit rules, and grandfather
in existing health plans that are not compliant with the ACA.

Another proposal, by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), would continue premium
subsidies for 18 months but phase them out over that period. For six
months after the court rules, financial assistance for all
subsidy-eligible exchange customers would be set at a flat 65% of
premium costs. That would decrease by 5 percentage points each month
until the subsidies were completely eliminated. During the transition
period, insurers would be prohibited from raising premiums. In addition,
the Sasse bill would prohibit HHS from providing federal exchange
technology to states interested in establishing their own exchanges. […] READ MORE

The Satanic Temple, a faith community that ascribes to seven central tenets that track closely with humanism, is seeking a religious exemption
from Missouri’s 72-hour abortion waiting period on the grounds that the
law violates their sincerely held beliefs about bodily autonomy.

The St. Louis chapter of the Satanic Temple says they were recently contacted by a Satanist woman,
whom they identify only as “Mary,” who is struggling to navigate
Missouri’s harsh abortion laws as she attempts to end a pregnancy. She
lives hundreds of miles away from the state’s only abortion clinic, and she doesn’t have the means to make the trip twice
in order to comply with the state’s mandatory counseling and 72-hour
waiting requirements. So her religious leaders are stepping in on her
behalf.

Satanic Temple leaders set up a crowdfunding site
to raise money to help Mary cover the expenses associated with her
abortion procedure. And they’re also arguing that, based on their
community’s religious tenets
— which stipulate that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own
will alone” and “we should take care never to distort scientific facts
to fit our beliefs” — Mary should be able to get a faith-based exemption
to the state’s 72-hour waiting period. READ MORE

Maryland State Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby has filed charges
against six officers in the death of Baltimore man Freddie Gray. During
a live press conference, she expressed a commitment to justice and condemned those
in law enforcement who have “leaked information prior to the resolution
of the case,” saying that they have damaged her office’s ability to
carry out a fair and impartial process.
As authorities dig deeper into the events surrounding Freddie Gray’s arrest and mysterious death, there seem to be more questions than answers,
particularly about how exactly the 25-year-old Baltimorean sustained
his fatal injuries. Gray’s spine was nearly severed and his voice box
was crushed.

Mosby may have been alluding to a Baltimore Police Department document obtained by the Washington Post that alleges Gray caused his own injuries by banging on the police van while he was being transported. Conservative news sites
wasted little time disseminating the findings in stories that
speculated that Gray damaged his spine long before the incident and won a
court settlement for those injuries, although the court document in
question was actually related to a lead poisoning case.

There’s a lot of information that critics say contradicts the account reported in the Post. There’s a video
showing a numbness in Gray’s legs as officers drag him into a paddy
wagon. Donte Allan, the man in the van with Freddie Gray whose account
forms the basis of the police document obtained by the Washington Post,
later denied telling police anything. And Baltimore’s WBAL-TV investigative reporter Jayne Miller says that statements from her sources contradict what the Washington Post reported. READ MORE

Military families will be exposed to predatory car loans and payday lenders for another year unless a little-noticed provision
of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is stripped out of the
bill during a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday.

Majority Republicans quietly inserted language into the gigantic
defense legislation that would override a Pentagon push to enhance
consumer protections for men and women in uniform. Flaws in the current
rules have allowed lenders to trap military families in loans that cost
two, five, and even ten times as much to repay as what the loan was
actually worth.

Pentagon officials laid out plans in 2014
to revamp the rules that protect armed forces families from
unscrupulous financial firms, after multiple analyses of how lenders use
loopholes in the 2006 Military Lending Act (MLA) to target soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and Marines. But a subcommittee draft of the NDAA would
prohibit the Department of Defense (DOD) from implementing the rules it
wants until it conducts a further study of the current rules and submits the findings to Congress. READ MORE

A Senate committee has advanced legislation that would change how the
Environmental Protection Agency uses science to craft regulations
intended to protect the environment and public health, the Hill reported Tuesday.

On party line votes, the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee voted 11-9 to approve the “Secret Science Reform Act,” a bill
to prohibit the EPA from using science that includes private data, or
data that can’t be easily reproduced. The bill has been pushed strongly
by House Republicans for the last two years, but this is the first time
it has been advanced by the Senate. It is sponsored by Sen. John
Barrasso (R-WY).

The purpose of the Secret Science bill, according to its House
sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), is to stop “hidden and flawed” science
from being the basis of EPA regulations. However, many scientific
organizations have disagreed with this characterization.

For example, approximately 50 scientific societies and universities
said the bill would prohibit the EPA from using many large-scale public
health studies, because their data “could not realistically be
reproduced.” In addition, many studies use private medical data, trade
secrets, and industry data that cannot legally be made public.

“The legislation may sound reasonable, but it’s actually a cynical
attack on the EPA’s ability to do its job,” said Andrew Rosenberg, the
director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of
Concerned Scientists, in a statement.
“This bill would make it impossible for the EPA to use many health
studies, since they often contain private patient information that can’t
and shouldn’t be revealed.” READ MORE

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom Party, speaks at a rally of so-called ‘Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West’ (PEGIDA) in Dresden, Germany, Monday, April 13, 2015.

Two members of Congress hosted Dutch Politician and founder of the
Netherlands’ Party for Freedom Geert Wilders Wednesday. The
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Louie
Gohmert’s (R-TX) invitation for Wilders to speak to the Conservative Opportunity Society as “deeply distressing.”

“Muslims can be moderates. But there is no moderate Islam,” Wilders said to the crowd. “Islam has changed Europe beyond recognition.”

Wilders has a history of using discriminatory speech, particularly
against Muslim immigrants and Islam, and he did so again at Wednesday’s
speech by comparing the religion to National Socialism, or Nazism.

“Mr. Wilders is entitled to express his opinions, but for an elected
member of the House of Representatives to provide a platform for a man
who is practically an international symbol of anti-Muslim hatred not
only lends him credibility, it ill-serves the goal of having a Congress
that lives up to America’s ideals of tolerance,” Abraham H. Foxman, ADL
National Director, said in a press release from earlier this week.
“Reps. King and Gohmert should reconsider the invitation, given this
individual’s established record as one of the most notorious bigots in
the world.” READ MORE

On Wednesday, a 5-4 Supreme Court held in Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar
that states may “prohibit judges and judicial candidates from
personally soliciting funds for their campaigns.” It was a small but
symbolically important victory for supporters of campaign finance laws,
as it showed that there was actually some limit on the Roberts Court’s
willingness to strike down laws limiting the influence of money in
politics.

Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion for the Court in Williams-Yulee
is certainly better for campaign finance regulation than a decision
striking down this limit on judicial candidates — had the case gone the
other way, judges could have been given the right to solicit money from the very lawyers who practice before them.
Yet Roberts also describes judges as if they are special snowflakes who
must behave in a neutral and unbiased way that would simply be
inappropriate for legislators, governors and presidents: READ MORE

Touted as part of the solution to world hunger, genetically modified
(GM) crops have long battled political and philosophical opposition.
Now a study suggests that they may encounter economic issues as well.
For the past three years, researchers at Kansas State have compared
Monsanto genetically modified soybean crops with an unaltered variety.

Barney Gordon, a professor of agronomy at Kansas State, said that the
study began because farmers questioned why they got less output from
genetically engineered crops. He found that GM soybeans produce less grain per acre and now thinks it is possible “that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil.”

These results were released following the International Service for the
Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) report that developing
countries implemented GM crops in record high numbers
in 2007. Clive James of the ISAA said today’s poverty stems from
agricultural difficulties and “this technology can make a contribution.”

Barack Obama was raised by a financially struggling single mother,
and Mitt Romney was the son of an auto executive turned governor who
grew up to be a gazillionaire in the financial industry. This made
biographical populism an unfruitful subject for the right. But
circumstances have changed a bit. Hillary Clinton and her husband have
grown extremely rich in their post–White House years, and the Republican
Party is cultivating at least a couple of potential candidates, like
Scott Walker and Marco Rubio, who boast of their modest backgrounds.
Republicans are licking their lips for a year and a half of
Hillary-as–Leona Helmsley, flying around in private jets, luxuriating in
wealth, and disingenuously pretending to care about the struggles of
average Americans.

There is, however, one wee problem in the Republican populist plot. That is the policy agenda.

Conservative writer Jay Cost
is already looking ahead to this problem, which he presents as a kind
of dodge. After flaying Clinton for her wealth, he fumes, “Really, the
only claim Clinton can make to understanding the travails of everyday
Americans is her party’s platform,” writes Cost, “Endorsement of that
document is a kind of sacrament that bestows the power of empathy upon
every Democratic pol. This is perhaps the most absurd premise of the
Clinton candidacy.”

This is a strange and revealing passage. He argues that Clinton is a
tool of the rich, and the only possible fact undermining this otherwise
obvious reality is her party’s platform, i.e., the stuff she would do as
president. This is an “absurd” premise upon which to cast her as a
populist if you think of elections as a soap-opera drama between two
individuals. It makes a lot of sense if you think about the presidency
as a vehicle to change public policy. READ MORE

"Yeah just go ahead and take pictures. Mom and dad already know I did ." Photo: Erin Barnes

Today at noon, employees at Lush Cosmetics citywide dropped trou and
strutted, naked but for aprons, outside their places of employment. The
stunt was cooked up by the British Columbia–based company in order to
promote their "naked" bath products — they are made from organic fruit
and vegetables and sold sans plastic bottles — and it certainly got them attention. Over by the Lush store in Herald Square, tourists and salarymen went wild
at the unexpected midday display of flesh. "Take them off! Take them
off!" the crowd shouted at two twentysomething guys in boxers, one of
whom eventually complied. The publicity stunt, a spokesperson explained,
was the company's idea, but employees chose whether to comply. While
some clearly reveled in the attention (see above), as the crowd grew
larger, others seemed to be feeling regretful about their choice. We
asked store manager Jennifer Paulson, who kept herself firmly pressed
against the store wall, why she had chosen to go naked. "Because we keep
our products unpackaged so nothing goes to the landfill," she said like
a good employee, then worried aloud: "Someone was videotaping so now
I'm worried I'm going to be on YouTube!" FROM THE SITE

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton gave a well-timed keynote address at David
Dinkins's forum at Columbia University calling for police body cameras
and an end to the era of mass incarceration. "What we've seen in
Baltimore should, indeed I think does, tear at our soul," Clinton said. It was, you know, a fine
speech, definitely not the most stirring one you'll hear on the topic,
but the stories of police killings contain such naked injustice and
human suffering and pain, that Clinton, in retelling them, had a certain
winning exasperation.

But it may have been the start of something, too. For policy reasons
and moral reasons, but also for pure reptilian political ones, this is a
really interesting issue for Clinton to take on, one that might help
her solve some of the trickiest challenges of her presidential campaign:

First,
elevating criminal-justice reform allows Clinton to move left in a way
that is timely, on an issue on which she isn't likely to be outflanked
by Elizabeth Warren and her supporters. On economic history, Clinton's
beliefs, advisors, and record simply aren't left-wing; the party's moved
to the left during her public life, and she's been caught behind it.
But criminal-justice reform hasn't been one of Warren's major issues,
and, more important, Clinton is more or less in line with what the left
wants from a president on criminal-justice issues: Many fewer people in
prison, an acknowledgement that our criminal justice is very badly
biased against poor people and racial minorities and an aggressive
effort by the White House to fix those injustices, and a symbolic end to
the era of the war on drugs and mass incarceration. After her speech
this week, it's hard to see how Clinton would disagree with any of that. READ MORE

The best feature of freshman Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky’s Albany
office is its eighth-floor view of the Catskill Mountains. The space
itself is pretty snug. Not that Kaminsky is complaining. “Besides,” he
says, “when I moved in, one of the building guys said, ‘With everything
that’s going on, pretty soon you’ll have a suite.’”

Everything
is of course the attrition by investigation that’s been working its way
through the state legislature. Kaminsky, a Democrat, is keeping an eye
on the drama just like everyone else in town — but he’s doing it from a
unique vantage point. His previous job was as a federal prosecutor with
the Eastern District of the U.S. Attorney’s office, which covers
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Kaminsky’s home turf, Long Island.
He was particularly good at convicting corrupt legislators, including
former congressman Michael Grimm and former state Senate majority leader
Pedro Espada Jr. As a prosecutor he also collaborated with the Moreland
Commission, whose investigation of the state legislature has led to
some of the recent indictments issued by Preet Bharara.

Now that Kaminsky, since January, is himself a legislator, this
résumé makes for some awkward moments in Albany. “There’s a ton of
paranoia here,” he says. “I had a conversation with a number of
colleagues where people were talking about the pension forfeiture laws,
and how they’re just draconian. I said, ‘This only applies if you get
convicted! Don’t get convicted!’ A colleague says, ‘Well, there’s
entrapment— ’ I said, ‘Look, if someone offers you a bag of money, don’t
take it!’”READ MORE

Former Illinois representative Aaron Schock, who was brought down by his Downton Abbey–esque office decor, hasn't just disappeared from Congress. A campaign donor is suing Schock for racketeering and fraud, but according to the Chicago Sun-Times,
the man's attorney told a federal judge on Wednesday that he hasn't
been able to serve Schock with the lawsuit. He said the Peoria address
Schock listed on FEC forms is vacant, and the former congressman's
attorneys have not responded to his inquiries. (His Twitter and Facebook are inactive, too.) He's probably just good at avoiding process servers, but someone should check to make sure he hasn't kidnapped his secret love child and run off to London. FROM THE SITE

Thursday, April 30, 2015

During Tuesday’s marriage equality arguments in the Supreme Court,
several of the Court’s conservative members suggested that same-sex
couples should not be given equal marriage rights because these couples have not enjoyed those rights for most of the past.
As Justice Antonin Scalia summed up this argument, “for millennia, not a
single society” supported marriage equality, and that somehow exempted
same-sex couples from the Constitution’s promise of equal protection of
the law.

Not long after her conservative colleagues raised this argument,
however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained exactly why marriage was
long understood to be incompatible with homosexuality in just five sentences: READ MORE

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

From prisons to rail franchises and even London's Boris bikes, Serco is a
giant global corporation that has hoovered up outsourced government
contracts. Now the NHS is firmly in its sights. But it stands accused of
mismanagement, lying and even charging for non-existent work

In May this year, a huge company listed on the London Stock Exchange found itself in the midst of controversy about a prison it runs for the government
– Thameside, a newly built jail next to Belmarsh, in south-east London.
A report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate found that 60% of its inmates
were locked up all day, and there were only "vague plans to restore the
prison to normality". The prison campaign group the Howard League for Penal Reform talked about conditions that were "truly alarming".

Two months later, the same company was the subject of a high- profile report published by the House Of Commons public accounts committee, prompted by the work of Guardian journalist Felicity Lawrence.
This time, attention was focused on how it was managing out-of-hours GP
services in Cornwall, and massive failings that had first surfaced two
years before. Again, the verdict was damning: data had been falsified,
national standards had not been met, there was a culture of "lying and
cheating", and the service offered to the public was simply "not good
enough".

Three weeks ago, there came grimmer news.
Thanks to its contracts for tagging offenders, the company was now the
focus of panic at the Ministry of Justice, where it had been discovered
that it was one of two contractors that had somehow overcharged the
government for its services, possibly by as much as £50m; there were
suggestions that one in six of the tags that the state had paid for did
not actually exist. How this happened is still unclear, but justice
secretary Chris Grayling has said the allegations represent something
"wholly indefensible and unacceptable". READ MORE

Despite a decline in military spending since 2010, U.S. defense
expenditures are still 45 percent higher than they were before the 9/11
terror attacks put the country on a seemingly permanent war footing.

That’s nearly three times as much as China, and more than seven times as much as Russia.

The share of world military expenditure of the 15 states with the highest expenditure in 2014. (Source: SIPRI)

Saudi Arabia is now the fourth-biggest military spender on the globe,
which in its case means spending nearly $80 billion last year buying weapons, mostly from the U.S., and most notably including fistfuls of F-15 fighters and top-of-the-line attack helicopters. READ MORE

A report
showing that more than half the $100 million the city of Los Angeles
spends each year on homelessness goes to police demonstrates that the
city is focused on enforcement rather than getting people off the
streets, homeless advocates said Friday.

"Supports what we've been saying for years that this city is doing
almost nothing to advance housing solutions but continues down the
expensive and inhumane process of criminalization that only makes the
problem worse," said Becky Dennison of Los Angeles Community Action
Network, a skid row advocacy group, in an email.

Almost 15,000
people the LAPD arrested in 2013 were homeless, or 14% of those
arrested, according to the report from the city administrative office.
Labor costs for the arrests were estimated between $46 million and $80
million. READ MORE

Scientists in China have genetically modified human embryos in a
world first that has re-ignited the debate over the ethics and safety of
genetic therapies that have the potential to prevent inherited
diseases.

The work raises fresh questions over whether restrictions should be
placed on a new wave of genetic techniques that are rapidly gaining
ground in labs across the world.

The Chinese group used a genome editing procedure called Crispr to
modify an aberrant gene that causes beta-thalassaemia, a
life-threatening blood disorder, in faulty IVF embryos obtained from
local fertility clinics.

The embryos used for their experiments were abnormal and incapable of
developing into healthy babies and would have been destroyed by the
clinics. They were not implanted into women once the modifications were
made. READ MORE

The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly
every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in
almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal
defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.

Of 28
examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26
overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more
than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the
Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s
largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

The
cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14
have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement
with the government to release results after the review of the first
200 convictions. READ MORE

Political and social pressure to volunteer is on the rise.
Charities are now relying on volunteer work to deliver state
subcontracted services. It is time to question this trend and what it
means for the rising percentage of unemployed people who are pushed into
working for free.

Walk around London and you will notice the many posters endorsed by
the Mayor of London encouraging people to volunteer to increase their
career chances. Volunteering at football clubs helps doctors become
better at their jobs while volunteering at a zoo will help aspiring
zookeepers find employment. Whatever you may want to do professionally
in the public or third-sector, get volunteering to fill up that CV!

Political and social pressure to volunteer - and to volunteer to get a
job - is on the rise even as jobs in the charities sector and elsewhere
become ever rarer. At the same time, charities are increasingly relying
on volunteer work to deliver state (subcontracted) services, and more
and more volunteers are people who are seeking employment. Increasingly
volunteering is just a fancy word for un-paid work and a band-aid for
cutting services. This is not to say that volunteering isn't an
admirable activity or that people shouldn't be contributing their
skills, time, knowledge and compassion for causes they care about and
indeed for the benefit of their community. But the political
glorification of volunteering in an age of austerity needs to come with a
public debate about replacing paid and qualified labour with unpaid
labour, especially in the charity sector.

Big Oil, labor exploiters, industrial food factories, frackers and
other corporate profiteers have been paying a lot of money to a man that
celebrates himself "Dr. Evil" — the scourge of all progressive groups!

But Rick Berman is not a doctor, not evil and not a scourge. While he
is a wholly unprincipled little man, he's just a self-serving huckster
who grubs for corporate dollars by offering to do their dirty PR work.
His specialty is taking secret funding from major corporations to
publicly slime

environmentalists, low-wage workers and anyone else
perceived by his corporate clients as enemies.
Berman's modus operandi is not exactly sophisticated. Taking money
from the likes of Phillip-Morris, Monsanto and Tyson Foods, he sets up
tax-exempt front groups (with non-descript names like Center for
Consumer Freedom, Employment Policies Institute and Environmental Policy
Alliance), posing them as independent research and academic outfits.
Each one is an empty shell, run by his small staff of political hacks
out of his Washington, D.C., office, and, using the names of the front
groups, Berman and Co. buy full-page newspaper ads and write opinion
pieces filled with made-up facts and manufactured horror stories for
clueless media outlets that amount to raw hatchet attacks on whatever
progressive groups or public policies the corporate funders want to
kill.

His mad dog style is hardly worrisome to those targeted, for rather
than drawing converts to the corporate funder's cause, it merely rallies
the usual anti-labor, anti-enviro, anti-"fill in the blank" crowd. But
it still appeals to brand-name corporate clients, for Berman promises to
spew their message into the media without having any of the nastiness
stick to them. "We run all this stuff through nonprofit organizations
that are insulated from having to disclose donors," he assured energy
executives last year.

"There is total anonymity," he bragged. "People don't know who supports us." READ MORE

Because of irresponsible reporting by conservative sources, many
Americans have been led to believe that social programs are bankrupting
our nation. The mainstream media fawningly concurs, with statements like
this from USA Today: "The massive deficits...[and] chronic
underfunding...are largely the result of Washington's habit of
committing too much money to benefit programs." States are now beginning
to attack imagined safety net abuses, such as the use of food stamp
funds to pay for fortune tellers and pleasure cruises.

But hungry people rarely waste their modest benefits, and most are
eager to work to support their households. Almost three-quarters of
those enrolled in food stamps and other social programs are members of
working families. And according to the US Department of Agriculture,
only 1 cent of every SNAP dollar is used fraudulently.

The real threat is the array of entitlements demanded by the very
rich. As they get richer, they're gradually bankrupting the greater part
of America, the middle and lower classes. The following annual numbers may help to put our country's expenses and benefits in perspective. READ MORE

Loretta Lynch, who the Senate confirmed Thursday to be the nation’s next attorney general, has said she’d make it one of her “highest priorities” to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

A key component of that is holding police departments accountable.
Now that she’s the nation’s top law enforcement official, what would
that mean for Lynch in practice?

The past 40 years have seen the United States become home to more
prisoners than any other country in the world. Yet despite this dramatic
boom in incarceration rates, a new report finds that the deterrent
effect of tough-on-crime policies remain “highly uncertain.”

The report,
published Wednesday by the National Research Council, describes the
rise of incarceration in America as “historically unprecedented and
internationally unique.” It found that from 1973 to 2009, the prison population grew
from about 200,000 to approximately 2.2 million. With this spike, the
U.S. now holds close to a quarter of the world’s prisoners, even though
it accounts for just 5 percent of the global population.

“We are concerned that the United States is past the point where the
number of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” said
Jeremy Travis, president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the
chair of the committee behind the study. “A criminal justice system
that makes less use of incarceration can better achieve its aims than a
harsher, more punitive system.”

The cost of America’s prison expansion has been staggering, the study
notes. In most states, spending on corrections represents the third
highest category of general fund expenditures, ranked only behind
Medicaid and education. READ MORE

The Justice Department is investigating
how a Texas county punishes kids for missing school, targeting what
civil-rights advocates call the school-to-prison pipeline: policies that
disproportionately rout certain children — primarily blacks and
Latinos — out of class and into the juvenile justice system.In Texas, failure to attend school, or truancy, is a criminal offense
punishable by fines up to $500, plus court costs. Judges also have wide
discretion in levying additional penalties. They can order children
to attend counseling or perform community service, or even wear an ankle
monitor or drop out of school entirely.

That policy, and the way it is applied, disproportionately harms
low-income children, blacks and Latinos and those with disabilities, according
to a report released in 2013 by Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy
group that has sought federal intervention in the state. Kids who miss
too much school aren’t always just playing hooky, though. They may have
other reasons for not being in class, such as homelessness or having to
care for other family members.

Research suggests that incarcerating young people is often ineffective, and can actually make them more likely to commit another crime. Those findings, and a desire to cut high incarceration costs, have led several states to rethink the way they handle juvenile offenders. READ MORE

When the federal government investigates a police department, it’s
usually looking at allegations that officers use excessive force or
racially profile residents.

Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said that it was coming to
the rural Louisiana town of Ville Platte, to investigate the police
department and the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office, which is also
headquartered in the town. It said it would look into allegations that
the officers detain residents in their jails without proper cause.

This appears to be the first time the DOJ has opened a “pattern or practice investigation”
solely into the practice of improper detentions. Under this type of
probe, the Justice Department looks for constitutional violations. If it
finds any, the department has the power to sue law enforcement agencies
to correct them.

It’s not clear whether a specific incident prompted the
investigation; the Department of Justice is notoriously tight-lipped
about its motives for targeting a particular law enforcement agency. In
its announcement, the DOJ said it was looking into allegations that law
enforcement in Ville Platte improperly keep people in jail under
“investigative holds” — detained without charges while officials
investigate a crime.

“A Monetary Windfall for the City”

But civil-rights activists in Louisiana say that improper
detentions are only part of a broader problem in Ville Platte, a city in
which they say residents are cited for frivolous violations,
excessively fined and put in jail when they cannot pay.

It’s a system that on its face appears similar to some of what Justice Department officials found
in Ferguson, Mo., where the police department, at the behest of the
city, regularly ticketed mostly African-American residents for
violations like “manner of walking in roadway,” and then funneled that
money into the city coffers. Those who couldn’t pay were sent to jail. READ MORE

Monday, April 27, 2015

On April 23, ABC News explained that their independent
review of the source material used for Clinton Cash "uncovered errors in
the book, including an instance where paid and unpaid speaking
appearances were conflated." The book purports to reveal connections
between Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state, donations to the
Clinton Foundation, and paid speeches given by the Clintons, but
Schweizer reportedly admits in the book he cannot prove his allegations.

According to ABC, Schweizer "said the errors would be corrected." The
book is due for release on May 5; it is unclear whether the errors will
be corrected before the first publication.

Media Matters identified ten previous instances in which Schweizer
made serious factual errors, issued retractions, or relied on
questionable so READ MORE

Ervin Edwards, arrested for sagging pants, dead in his cell after being Tasered to death

On November 26, 2013, 38-year-old Ervin Edwards, partially deaf and mentally ill, was arrested by police for sagging his pants and taken to the West Baton Rouge Parish jail in Louisiana. He only lived for a few more minutes inside of the cell.

For 18 months, police have lied over and over again about what
happened the night Ervin Edwards died in their custody. Now that a video
of their despicable actions has been released, it's clear they murdered
this man and left him to die all alone in his jail cell. The Advocate has provided an annotated video. See the video and my breakdown of their lies below the fold. READ MORE

Over the years, Jimmy Carter, a devout Christian, has become a very
strong proponent of women's rights, to a point where he has spoken out
against the falsehoods and extremism we see within the 'religion' of Christianity today. In 2009, he penned an open letter, severing ties with the mega SBC/Southern Baptist Convention,
after being a member of the Convention for 60 years. Carter said the
decision was difficult and painful, yet 'unavoidable,' after the
Convention leaders chose to take bible verses out of context and claim
'Eve' was responsible to for 'original sin,' and thus all women must be
subservient to men. In Carter's aforementioned open letter, he expands
on his reasons and concerns:READ MORE

Because there's not enough stupid filling the air on Sunday mornings, we're now going to get treated to Sharyl Attkisson's special flavor of "investigative" reporting.

The former CBS News correspondent, who resigned from the network last year, will host a new, 30-minute Sunday morning national news program based in Washington, D.C., Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. announced in a press release Wednesday. The show will air on the company's ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX affiliates. Sinclair said the journalist will come on board in June, but the show will likely not debut until next fall.

"We are excited to have Sharyl on board as we launch this group-wide
news program," vice president of news for Sinclair Television Group
Scott Livingston said in the press release. "Our goal is to provide the
context and perspective on major issues impacting our viewers. Sharyl
has a proven track record of exposing the truth behind stories that
other news organizations shy away from. I admire Sharyl's determination
and passion to seek the truth." READ MORE

The New York Times' first mistake was agreeing to a
'partnership' with Koch shill Peter Schweizer. The second mistake they
made was publishing a vague story suggesting that the Clinton Foundation
engaged in something shady with Canadian businessman Frank Giustra.

Giustra has a message for the Times and a response to the few specifics in their story. They should listen.

The facts do not comport with the story in the New York
Times. The reporter, Jo Becker, wrote a similar piece in 2008, which was
eventually debunked by Forbes.

I began working on financing the purchase of mining stakes from a
private Kazakh company in early 2005. The purchase was concluded in late
2005

In late 2005, I went to Kazakhstan to finish the negotiations of the
sale. Bill Clinton flew to Almaty a few days after I arrived in the
country on another person’s plane, not on my plane, as the Times
reported. Bill Clinton had nothing to do with the purchase of private
mining stakes by a Canadian company.

I sold all of my stakes in the uranium company – Uranium One – in
the fall of 2007, after it merged with another company. I would note
that those were sold at least 18 months before Hillary Clinton became
the Secretary of State. No one was speculating at that time that she
would become the Secretary of State. READ MORE

What's the definition of insanity, again? Isn't it something
like doing something over and over again and expecting different
results? Why yes, it is, but Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has no
problem treading in the same water where Indiana Governor Mike Pence
nearly drowned.

In an op-ed
published in our favorite paper of record, Jindal shook his little
fists at corporations who do business in Louisiana, telling them to
"save their breath" rather than protest Louisiana's proposed RFRA law.

The legislation would prohibit the state from denying a
person, company or nonprofit group a license, accreditation, employment
or contract — or taking other “adverse action” — based on the person or
entity’s religious views on the institution of marriage.

Some corporations have already contacted me and asked me to oppose this law.
I am certain that other companies, under pressure from radical
liberals, will do the same. They are free to voice their opinions, but
they will not deter me. As a nation we would not compel a priest,
minister or rabbi to violate his conscience and perform a same-sex
wedding ceremony. But a great many Americans who are not members of the
clergy feel just as called to live their faith through their businesses.
That’s why we should ensure that musicians, caterers, photographers and
others should be immune from government coercion on deeply held
religious convictions. READ MORE

On Thursday, Scott Walker went for another one of his taxpayer-funded
non-campaign campaign jaunts. This time he went to Minnesota.

Now, keep in mind that for the past 4+ years - with the
exception of professional and college football - Minnesota has been
kicking Wisconsin's butt on just about every economic measure. The reasons are myriad, but the biggest four reasons are health care, minimum wage, unions and pay equality.
As one might expect, Walker was welcomed with a fair amount
of taunting. However, it was R.T. Rybak, former mayor of Minneapolis,
who gave Walker third-degree political burns:

In 2010, both Wisconsin and Minnesota faced similar budget woes and a
worrisome economic future amid a national recession. Both are also
Midwest states, deeply invested in manufacturing and agricultural
economic drivers. The only difference was that Minnesotans elected DFL
Gov. Mark Dayton to turn Minnesota around, while Wisconsinites chose
Scott Walker to lead their state’s recovery.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

This is a smoking gun concerning the millionaire Tulsa Reserve Deputy Bob Bates who shot and killed Eric Harris in March:

CBS News learned that in 2009, the Tulsa Sheriff's Office
launched an internal investigation to find out if Bates received special
treatment during training and while working as a reserve deputy. They
also investigated whether supervisors pressured training officers on
Bates' behalf.

The investigation concluded Bates' training was questionable and that he was given preferential treatment.

The investigation found that deputies voiced concerns about Bates'
behavior in the field, almost from the very beginning. Bates reportedly
used his personal car while on duty and made unauthorized vehicle stops.
When confronted Bates said that he could do what he wanted, and that
anyone who had a problem with him should go see the sheriff.

See the CBS News video on the newly revealed report below. It's clearly
no longer speculation about whether or not Bob Bates and the Tulsa
Sheriff's Department were abusing the system. Now it's a proven fact.
READ MORE

Remember Dan Price, the CEO who cut his own pay to raise the minimum annual pay at his company to $70,000?
Turns out, that wasn't just a morally good thing to do, and Price
doesn't have to wait for the longer-term payoff of increased
productivity and reduced staff turnover—he's seeing an immediate payoff for Gravity Systems, his credit card processing company:

Price said the news has brought in dozens of new clients,
making it the best week for new business in the company's 11-year
history.
The firm has about 15,000 clients and handles about $10 billion in payments every year.

If the burst of new clients continues, it could create new jobs—new good
jobs—and let other businesses know that treating workers well can pay
off. But it's important to remember that workers shouldn't have to get lucky with an amazingly good boss to make a decent living and be treated well. Good bosses go viral, but for more workers, this is the reality: READ MORE

Tuesday in Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's civil
contempt hearing began, and the first day was a doozie. US District
Judge Murray Snow ordered Sheriff Arpaio to appear at the hearing
because the bigoted blowhard had arrogantly defied the judge's orders
following Melendres v. Arpaio. In that 2007 incident, argued by the ACLU, the court found that the sheriff's office did indeed use race as a determining factor in traffic stops and other detainments, the very definition of racial profiling.
Following the Melendres verdict in 2011, which was upheld by
the 9th Circuit Court a year later, in 2013 Judge Snow ordered three
major reforms: Arpaio must end his infamous immigration roundups
(neighborhood "sweeps"), turn over video evidence from traffic stops,
and install a court-appointed monitor to oversee compliance. Arpaio did
none of this; in fact, he destroyed
video evidence and continued his sweeps. Having run out of patience,
last month Judge Snow, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered Arpaio and
several key deputies to appear at this week's four-day contempt hearing.

Immediately after the judge announced the hearing, Sheriff Arpaio tried to buy his way out of the mess—admitting his guilt
and promising to donate $100,000 to a civil rights organization if the
judge would cancel the contempt hearing. Judge Snow said no and the
proceedings began yesterday; he will decide if Arpaio and four key
deputies are guilty of civil contempt or perhaps whether the case should
move to a criminal phase.

The hearing's first day was explosive, and not in a good way for the sheriff. First, his lead attorney resigned, stating a conflict of interest since he also works for Maricopa County.

Tom Liddy, one of Arpaio's attorneys, abruptly quit, citing a
conflict of interest and saying he was "filing an application to
withdraw from the case."

Another long-time Arpaio attorney, Tim Casey, had jumped ship back in
November, leaving only one of the original three-person legal team. The
worst turn for Sheriff Arpaio, however, was the testimony of two former
deputies, who essentially said the sheriff willfully ignored Judge
Snow's orders. "Willful" is key here, since it would lead to a criminal
trial. READ MORE